Albums--printing, online hosting, or? --suggestions, please

Well, after a decade of just dumping files here and there on my hard drive, I'm finally culling through the thousands of images and dozens of folders and find there are many I want to display, quite a few I would like to print as is, and still others deserving some post-processing for larger prints. One side of me says to just print the best 100 or so and put them in traditional albums, but I know nothing of the various image hosting/on demand print services out there or budget bulk printers or some other creative solution (have the electric display frames improved lately?).

Any suggestions welcome. Ibid for a workflow plan and rationale. The little time I spend on images is 90% composition and snap shooting, and I really need to shift to better display options than buried in some "my pictures" subtree only to be seen as thumbnails. Thanks in advance.

For sorting through to find the keepers vs tossers I am ruthless about culling pictures. If I shoot 60-100 and keep 5-10, I'm happy.

I use Lightroom. Import into one catalog on an SSD and after I have culled and processed (usually very little), I import into another LR catalog by subject. (Every couple of weeks I back up all files twice- on site and off site). Smugmug for on line storate. It is easy flag things to publish on to Smugmug in LR and then publish a downsized version. I keep a catalog in LR and on Smugmug called Favorites. My best get sent to that catalog also (it not a second copy of the file, but a link to the original in LR). Then I publish that favorites into a Smugmug catalog. These do end up being a second on line copy. On the primary computer at home, i have two monitors. One is usually blank, show only the desktop wallpaper. I use a program to automatically pull images from the Smugmug Favorites and rotate them on the desktop wall paper. Voila - I get to enjoy my images. I do similar thing on my android devices to cycle through the images as wall paper.

For sorting through to find the keepers vs tossers I am ruthless about culling pictures. If I shoot 60-100 and keep 5-10, I'm happy.

I use Lightroom. Import into one catalog on an SSD and after I have culled and processed (usually very little), I import into another LR catalog by subject. (Every couple of weeks I back up all files twice- on site and off site). Smugmug for on line storate. It is easy flag things to publish on to Smugmug in LR and then publish a downsized version. I keep a catalog in LR and on Smugmug called Favorites. My best get sent to that catalog also (it not a second copy of the file, but a link to the original in LR). Then I publish that favorites into a Smugmug catalog. These do end up being a second on line copy. On the primary computer at home, i have two monitors. One is usually blank, show only the desktop wallpaper. I use a program to automatically pull images from the Smugmug Favorites and rotate them on the desktop wall paper. Voila - I get to enjoy my images. I do similar thing on my android devices to cycle through the images as wall paper.

The setup took awhile, but the workflow is easy now.

Click to expand...

That's just the kind of answer I was looking for. Just trying to pick (well, put together) one methodology and stick to it.

As for the audience, personal comsumption mainly, so no real issues that would concern professionals, but it's not just about facebook sharing either (which I really don't do anyway). Still trying to make the transition from film, really, when you got a pile of pics to sort through and assemble into an album. I now just have too many sitting in the virtual drawers of my hard drive and want a way to give some order and hierarchy to the lot and print a few batches of small (3x5) keepers and a few select special shots for somewhat larger prints. Maybe have access (and possiby grant to others) higher resolution viewing and on-demand printing.

not sure if you have kids or our age or who your target is ?
not professional but friends parents or kids ?

press printed books like those that shutterfly as example does you could do a nice basic mix of photos some larger some more and create a book we do this with our kids and get 5 copies one for each kid to have late in life one to each parent and one for our library shelf the kids can take down and we can also
we also do a calendar for parents every year etc..
again this is just personal not professional stuff but the albums are a fun way to look at the images no binders nice small press printed books

MPIX is a great print company ? not sure what country you are in ? but they have a cool print box/display thing for small single prints etc..

we get some of those cheap black frames from ikea in various sizes and put together a whole wall collage kinda thing all various sizes all larger than 8x10 size though turned out great took a few hours to lay out on the floor first then transfer to the wall but well worth it once up I took a pic of the empty frames then went into PS and masked off and decided what prints I wanted where ? yeah a bit more work but a nice way to display your work you take all the time and money to take pictures might as well take some time to lay them out and display them nicely !

for sure wall prints are nice and can vary in size etc.. and I think a must in any persons home who likes photography not just on your computer or iPad or online ! but PRINTS

have a spot for your one or two favorite prints and just one each year and change them every year say on a holiday or do them for your Bday or something

for my personal stuff I use LR to manage stuff import everything and just choose favorites I really like make em 5 stars that way I can sort quickly I don't worry about deleting images on import I might take a moment and unselect any really bad frames but don't bother with much time I don't mind keeping stuff around and again by selecting only the images you want is much better than trying to decide what to delete ! look up editing in !
when skimming images very quickly does the image grab you ? yes or no as easy as that and move on
LR has some great features now to manage collections for projects or things you do with your images and meta tag things so you can find stuff later

huge amount of thought way more than a thread worth but this is rough idea

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